I work in the trade and this video is so full of bullshit. I can get 20 locks on a door, place a straw in the right place and make them all look very ineffective for views and clicks.
Now do a real video, with a shut door and a lock you can't see what it is and do the plastic trick. A reasonable well placed door won't have tolerance enough for 80% of what is shown in the video.
Also there are proper tools for bypassing locks that aren't a card or an x-ray sheet.
Also firefighters don't unlock doors, they go through them, you waste way to many precious seconds trying to preserve property while life is fading. This little piece of plastic might be able to defeat all these standard locks and mechanisms, it can't open a deadbolt, but a swift boot can.
EDIT: I think it should be clarified, because some redditors get frisky unless you are hyper specific, if it is an EMERGANCY a firefighter isn't going to let a door lock slow them down. If they have reason to enter a building its going to be done using the fastest method possible.
Generally speaking this is what is called soft entry. Usually good for when damage of property is trying to be avoided in a non emergent situation. Now if there is fire, or a medical emergency then sorry door.
Like a wellness check. Why blow down a door when you can enter and not cause property damage. Obviously if there are other factors, an ax or ram will be a better tool.
Can only speak for Germany but most doors are opened in a non destructive manner because in most cases the patient behind the door is either dead or isn't going to be in a worse state within the next half hour. If the door can't be opened there is no half opened window we can use or the fuckin house is burning then yes we kick that fucker in.
In a life or death situation like a fire, i doubt the first thing a fire fighter will be thinking about is "how should i safely open the door without damaging it, while the person on the otherside is unconscious, suffocating or about to meet his creator"
You're right about the life threatening situations, we're absolutely breaking the door in that case.
But the vast majority of times that we're trying to get through a locked door are not that kind of emergency - usually a lock out, lift assist, fire alarm (with no actual signs of fire) or welfare check. On those calls we definitely spend some time trying not to destroy their door.
And yes, this tool in particular is nowhere near as effective as this video shows. Actual doors make it way harder to get at the latch mechanism.
It won’t work on deadbolts. Yes the fire department can still get in. They spend hours a week breaking in new doors and lock. They are pretty good at it.
Source: I work for Chicago Fire Department, not the show. FYI: I’m on the medic side. I leave the hero work for the hero’s!
Most of the time this will work, 90% of the time. But for extreme doors they will use what civilians MIGHT call the jaws of life. Instead or pinching, think spreading open.
Edit: And yes it’s sometimes faster to go through the wall itself next to the door.
As someone who is decent at picking locks, notice how many quick cuts and camera changes there are.
Sometimes you do fish for the door fastener with a shim/wire/tool and open it in less than 5 seconds. Sometimes you can sit there for 30 minutes doing everything right before everything lines up and it works.
Unless you're kicking down old cardboard interior doors there is no human alive that can consistently open locked doors in 1 second or less. Even a breaching charge takes longer than 1 second to set up.
Jup. Once left my key on the kitchen table. Door locks on close. Broke 2 old credit cards, then called a professional. Guy tried literally everything in his satchel. 20min and 360€ later, he let me in and congratulated me on my front door.
Yeah, even without a deadbolt activated using an old credit card can take a few second or minutes. If the deadbolt is actived you just break the fucker down like everyelse has already stated or find a window.
Common hotel locks but I've also seen them in houses, just never as the primary lock (always a deadbolt, sometimes a lock in the handle as well). I've always assume these style if locks were so you could open and answer the door without fully unlocking it.
yeah it's the "I don't know/trust you, but want to speak to you to figure out why you're at my door, but don't want you to be able to push your way in" latch
In the US you typically have 2 locks on a front door. One is a deadbolt that physically prevents the door from opening, the other is a doorknob lock that prevents the doorknob itself from turning
I've seen three; dead bolt, chain slide, key lock. The real key to unlock relies solely on the force of the kick for almost all doors, outside and inside, especially with today's materials.
Sucks.
If you actually want to keep peeps out, it's reinforcing the frames, and door/window materials, and have a hardwired alarm system.
Wi-Fi cameras are also a joke.
Yeah, most criminals follow the path of least resistance. Unless someone is trying to get you for some reason; a criminal will move onto to a next target that had less security resistance than you. They ain't kicking down a down or angle grinding some random house lol. Those dudes want like a quick TV or stereo system yoink and dash.
My wife when I forget to lock the back door at home freaks out. “What if somebody breaks in while we’re out?”
Well, if they’re willing to walk past 4 security cameras and come in and steal, I imagine they would be fine smashing one of the 24 ancient single pane windows we have on all sides of the house.
Non emergent, W-tool for inward swinging doors with a wooden door jam. For metal doors, a rabbit tool, and in imminent danger situations like structure fires, halligan and axe. Most of us carry ‘shove knifes’ to try to manipulate the latch mechanism, but usually it’s one of the other options
I showed this to my dad. Who was a fire fighter for 35 years. He said he never picked a lock his entire firefighting career. He said they knock once or twice depending on the situation. If they suspect a life is in danger the door is coming off with force.
Firefighters don't fiddle with things like that, they just break it down. It's an emergency, they're not worried about being subtle or minimizing damage to the door.
"Fire's out,"
And they are still tearing at your walls with an axe.
They are checking the void space for smouldering flames that can reignited.
So yeah - they don't care. They were called to ensure the fire is out. They will ensure that fire is out. Keeping the walls and door intact was not part of the agreement.
I work with firefighters in my line of work. If this is an emergencyhey're either having a key as they get to the door or taking a haligan and opening that shit like a neanderthal lol. The only customer base using this tool are people breaking in
that sounds bad ass. thank you for your service. firefighters are superheroes to me. they are always the first ones on the scene even before ambulances show up.
I feel that would make sense in a lot of American housing. Over here in Western Europe plenty of walls are made of stone. I doubt anyone will go through a loadbearing/outside wall here.
We only use things like this if a person is locked out and we don’t want to damage the door. If there’s a fire, the Halligan and Axe (also known as “the irons”) are coming out, and we force the door open.
Source: am a firefighter.
If its not an obvious emergency use gentle methods first then move to the halligan. Don’t want to bust a door because someone’s detector is past its expiration date.
No, I’ve only met a few firefighters that are able to do things like this. Pretty much every building in the city I worked for had a lock box with keys on the outside, so that got us in everywhere. House fires are when you typically need to break doors in, we’d never take the time to pick a lock, your house is burning, your door is probably the least of your worries.
no. just a dumb title for views. will use a tool called a halligan to brute force the door open.
edit:
ive worked fire/ems at two departments and i can guarantee this isnt something we carry. maybe there’s a department out there that uses these, but there is almost 0 use case for these. if it’s a medical emergency, 9 times out of 10 the door will be unlocked or the caller is able to unlock the door. in the 1 out of 10 cases that isn’t possible, forcible entry will be made with a halligan. same thing with fires
All of these wont apply to Europe, maybe in older buildings. we have different locks and this shim would be ineffective for locked door. If only latched, openable form one side then yes, but only then.
Years ago the fire brigade were called to my dad’s workplace where all the doors punch codes to open. When couldn’t open the door to the offices where my dad’s team worked (different code to rest of building) they hacked a hole in the door with an axe like Jack Nicholson in The Shining to lean through and open from the inside.
Never seen this tool before , I would use it to see if it works but in my experience that deadbolt is the one that’s the problem. This tool looks like it works well for motel rooms mainly.
That's really cool and all but it's been my experience that they're just kicking that shit in. In nonemergency situations I have pled with firemen to just wait. I can be there in one minute with a key. Please don't break the door down. To no avail. Any other PMs feel me? Or does the fire department just hate me specifically?
They're so jacked on adrenaline responding to emergencies, too. When responding to my neighbor's house fire, i saw the firefighter rip the side gate off its hinges to get in the back yard. Shit wasn't even locked, didn't bother trying the latch first, just Hulkamania'd that fucker off
I've never been on that side of the exchange. I wonder if I would think to open the door first and risk wasting precious time or if they're trained specifically to not waste time doing that. Either way, my 110lb ass isn't ripping a gate off it's hinges even on purpose.
They are permitted to cause whatever property damage they feel is necessary to do their job. I worked in a plant where spraying things with water could make the fire much, much worse (think grease fire if contact with water made the grease burn more intensely). We had to periodically train local firefighters to deal with calls to our facility. They came once and wanted to tear apart a million dollar piece of equipment with pickaxes because a fire might be shouldering inside it.
They almost busted down my door while I was in the shower. Home alone at my dad’s house and these geniuses put a smoke detector right outside the bathroom which got triggered by the steam.
Fire department came FAST. I was still in a towel and on the phone with the alarm people when I heard banging on the door, ran downstairs and the fireman was standing there with an ax.
So now here I am, soaking wet and in a towel, surrounded by firemen. And it wasn’t at all like I’d imagined it would be.
Yea, that actually sounds about right. Biweekly at the very least. I managed some pretty gnarly apartment complexes for 20 years. The fire chief would call me, knew I lived a few blocks away, I would run my ass over there but they'd already kicked it in. Like, seriously man, just call and wake me up afterward.
I was moving out of an apartment and making a lot of trips to my car & dumpster at like 1 am in December. I had my key, but at one point, my door latched with a thing like the door chain but it was a solid loop.
I went to the local police who didn't speak much English because I was in Korea. We just kept kind of using their phone for Google translate to explain.
Finally they understand and call some people while I wait. Then they take me over to my apartment in a squad car and the firefighters are already there with their firetruck and the lights on, kicking the door in but it's a solid fire door so it took some good wallops to bend the door frame enough to finally get the latch undone. Neighbors are all poking their heads out because what's this weird foreigner doing?
A few weeks later, the foreign teacher that replaced me asks why all his neighbors treat him like a troublemaker and I had to explain they probably didn't realize we're different white guys.
If there is not a real emergency we try this, it helps to safe the door and limit the damage.
It can be quite expensive for the home owner to replace a door.
And if the person is not home after the incident for same reason (need to go to the hospital or whatever) we can lock the door, and the house is safer than a replacement door.
Big if.. if the situation is an emergency we don’t do this, it’s is quite hard, but some colleagues of my are really good and super fast.. in the Netherlands we call this “flipperen” ;)
Edit : And if the door is locked (there a really strong doors) you can’t do it.. so basically we do it on doors inside the house because those are the easy ones most of the time.
Firefighters wont spend the precious time trying to figure out what lock your door has and jimmy it open, they'll just smash that shit down so they can get to the important part :D
Once my grandfather had a salesman at the door, telling him about how he could open his door in seconds. My grandfather said prove it and shut the door right in his face. The sales tried for minutes and finally gave up ringing the bell again. Truth is, generally there is no such gap to insert some paper in it and locks are way harder to pick than you would think by watching lockpickinglawyer.
Common sense alone helps too. The video looks like it ran an a crt TV in hardware stores in the 90s. The reason alone the market is not flooded with a cheap paperlike tool is it's mostly marketing done here.
All of the locks in this video are just hotel privacy locks. They can all be easily opened by hotel staff if they really need to get in, but it will stop housekeeping from walking in on you laying around naked, eating your takeout order while watching whatever reality TV marathon is on the hotel cable.
I work in EMS and anytime we have a locked door that needs to be entered we call fire and those dudes are so excited to force a door open.
Don't worry firefighters LOVE to break down doors. They actually have to say during training multiple times "hey guys TRY (the doorknob) before you PRY(it open with your cool crowbar)"
This isn’t how firefighters do shit, this is a product demo for something I don’t think a lot of people are out here fumbling with when kicking and fire axes don’t need you to know what kind of lock is on the door.
If you have a locking knob/lever that is installed properly this won't do anything. Deadlatches are to prevent exactly this, but it has to be installed correctly without the deadlatch pin dropping into the strike.
Recently I had to open my own door like that! It’s pretty common in France to actually have an X-Ray hidden somewhere outside your appartment in case you need to do that (the plastic’s stiffness is just right for the job).
Important to note though that the doors shown on the video are not locked. They are just latched. If they were locked, from the outside, using a key, this wouldn’t have worked.
As a Firefighter I promise you these things always look like this during the demo. Don’t get me wrong they generally do work, but it usually takes far more effort.
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u/ShadyMorals 16h ago
I work in the trade and this video is so full of bullshit. I can get 20 locks on a door, place a straw in the right place and make them all look very ineffective for views and clicks.
Now do a real video, with a shut door and a lock you can't see what it is and do the plastic trick. A reasonable well placed door won't have tolerance enough for 80% of what is shown in the video. Also there are proper tools for bypassing locks that aren't a card or an x-ray sheet.